How to gain back Temporary memory by moving photos out of SkyDrive: fast forward time

While Windows Phone 8 10327 and higher (aka GDR2) does a great job of fixing the Other storage memory leak, there are still some quirks that are irritating a few users. The main complaint appears to be how Windows Phone handles auto-uploaded images to SkyDrive, or even if you manually mass upload photos and video.

In essence, when you upload photos to SkyDrive, they end up either in the 'Camera Roll' and 'Mobile Uploads' folders. You can then of course delete them from your device but believe it or not, Windows Phone holds onto them in Temporary storage for two weeks i.e. a SkyDrive cache.

That’s why some people have higher than normal Temporary storage numbers that cannot be cleared using apps like Nokia Storage Check. If you leave auto-upload for photos off, it will be quite low, usually less than 50MB in size (ours is at 33MB). If however you had a few hundred photos that were just processed, it could much higher.

We should point out that Windows Phone and SkyDrive will clear this out on its own. But like all things in computing, some would like more control than others. And on rare occasions e.g. OS updates, sometimes you really need that extra space right now.

In the Windows Phone Central forums, a simple method to speed up this process has been discovered and verified by a few members. It’s a simple idea and requires nothing more than a unassuming calendar change. Supposing you have a few hundred megabytes (or even gigabytes) of Temporary memory (not Other storage) and it is not clearing with any tools, try the following.

Steps to clear SkyDrive cache of recently uploaded photos and videos

Login into SkyDrive via the Web or the standalone Windows Phone app

Move every file in the 'Camera Roll' and 'Mobile Uploads' folders into a new, differently named folder

Go to your Pictures hub on your Windows Phone, and allow it to refresh and update

On your Windows Phone, push the date and time forward by at least two weeks

Needless to say, if you have recently uploaded a lot of photos or videos to SkyDrive, this could make a substantial impact. Having said that, we’re not sure many of you will fall into the 2GB of Temporary files category and even if you did, assuming you moved the files out of ‘Camera Roll’ and ‘Mobile Uploads’ folders, the system will clear itself out in two weeks’ time anyway.

We should also point out this is not Other storage, which is a Windows Phone cache system and very different from Temporary files, which includes things like Internet Explorer cache, SkyDrive data and more. Another misconception is that GDR2 fixes Other storage to the extent that it does not exist anymore—that is not the case as it merely controls itself more easily, but depending on your device hardware, it will still vary.

We can confirm that 8GB devices will have a lot less Other Storage (1/4 to 1/5 less) when compared to a 32GB with equal setups.

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Reader comments

How to gain back Temporary memory by moving photos out of SkyDrive: fast forward time

So what if I want to move my pictures to OneDrive and then basically delete my camera roll... I have 6.6GB worth of pictures? How should I do this? Ive already made new folders and transferred all the photos to diff named folders on OneDrive... But on my phone... The pix haven't moved from my camera roll... Safe to delete them?

I have to second that. I went looking for ways to free up space as my GOOD GFE app was running as slow a dog and I suspected it was because there was less than 1 GB of free space. Then I tried the instructions above. My "temporary files" went from 13.34 GB down to 9.88 MB. Awesome! My freespace went from less than 1 GB before to 13.97 GB after. I'm using a Lumia 1020 so I have no SD card option. I then put the date back to normal and the space remained.

Wow this would explain why my temporary storage number was so high, I recently went on vacation, and took a lot of videos, and media, so now I know its stored in a cache, and the phone isn't just being temperamental after I transferred media from phone to computer

Great stuff, my temp files has now gone down from 700MB to 33 :-). Very useful after having taken a whole load of photos the other day on a trip and wondering why my space was still being used up after having cleared them out already.

I don't set auto-upload to SkyDrive on photos setting, I set don't upload. On the top image here, in my Lumia 520 are 0 KB for music, 0 KB photos and I have not more than 8 images on camera roll. My temporary files are 124 MB, clear using storage check in setting still the same. Is there something wrong? And I don't in pictures hub, allow it refresh, I don't see it on photos setting.

Interesting , I'll give it a shot .
My "Temporary Files" has been stuck on 90.1MB since I downloaded GDR2 on my 8X a month ago , even though I don't upload pictures to SkyDrive ... But when I do (insert the Smartest Man In The World meme lol) I do it from the SkyDrive app directly to : Pictures >> Others .... I don't use the Mobile Uploads Folder or upload from the Photos App .

You have a point there. When I think about it, I have got some problems with Alarm Clock app since I started using this forward-date method. I cannot remember having seen any problems with the calendar notifications though.

I only have 130MB in my Temporary Files on my Lumia 521. Tried this, but it didn't clear anything out.

I regularly go into application settings and delete the Internet Explorer history though (not the history in the IE menu - that one doesn't delete temp files), which seems to always keep my temp files low.

The HTC Make More Space app doesn' t do anything for me! HTC 8XT :( The only thing i did, was download the trial for Modern Combat, but then I deleted it. Since then, I've had a little over a gig in the temporary storage.

I'm in vacation, taking lots of pics and bids, so this is very timely. I had to uninstall large games to keep ahead of the Storage creep'. I'm sure that didn't make the devs happy. MS should speed the process up and allow more control. Warn us if we are deleting before the file has been certified as good by Skydrive or whatever the back process is ( time for SkyDrive to make a redundant backup copy perhaps) but give us some control when we need it please!

Can anyone tell me how the 'make more space' app for HTC actually works? I have had 1.07GB temp files there for a few weeks. It says to tap to schedule a clean up, which I do but it doesn't seem to have any affect at all. Has anyone had success?

I don't upload to SkyDrive. On occasion I upload 1 or 2 pictures to Facebook. I have 100+Mb in temp files, and last time I checked, 1.1gb in other.
Update: tried this anyway and managed to go from 253mb to 7.9mb. Also set my yahoo email to manually update and brought other down from 1.1gb to 919mb. Why can't I do this with my Microsoft account settings?

my temporary file is at 107MB...i need something for 'other' which is 2.6 GB...so this is not quite that much helpful for me yet.....:'(...but anyways looks amazing for future reference...bcz we all knw MS is so slow about updates....

I do that too but still had 220-something in temp files, which Lumia storage brought down to 195 last time I tried it. This cache business is getting on my nerves. Did 7.x do this as well? Had a 16gb hd7 with over 4gb of space left, and I had movies, tons of pictures, apps/games, and uploaded to FB all the time.

My Other is 5.3GB on the 822... I might have GDR2, but still have nearly ⅓ of it to Other. Temp files are only 420MB; that's normal, IIRC.
Also need to confirm that if you empty temp, you clear cookies? Just wondering, but probably not.

So does it delete things from cache that you haven't accessed in two weeks or does it delete them from cache after they've been removed from skydrive after two weeks?
Do I HAVE to move them out of the folder for it to remove them from cache? Who coded this shitty caching system?

There's one thing I don't understand: Why do the files need to be moved within the SkyDrive-folder? Sounds like a simple "date-forward" now and then is not enough. If that's true, automatic upload is quite useless. Because if I have to manually shift my photos every few days, I can just shift them from my phone to SkyDrive. Then automatic upload is no real help... This feature seems fundamentally broken.

Its to prevent you having to download gigs of photos every time you load SkyDrive.
Its usefull, but they should allow more settings in what you keep in cache and what not.
And reducing 2 weeks to 4 days or something

Blackhawk556 is correct. The other storage folder is supposed to be dynamic in that it will automatically release memory as and when it's needed by other applications. This is how it's always supposed to have worked but didn't which is why GDR2 is supposed to have fixed things. So, even if your others folder is occupying 2 GB of storage it doesn't matter because the phone will release whatever storage is required when it's needed by other applications.

It very well may, but I have yet to see it. Only time mine has gone down is after wiping all my IE history and that was only 20 or so Mb. This cache idea was lame on their part. Hate that I have 1.1gb still in other taking away from my 7.2/8. If I could put apps on my 16gb SD card then I wouldn't be worried. I would gladly take a small hit to performance for that ability alone.

Sorry but the whole "Others is now fixed" is incredibly inconsistent. For instance my 920 has 14% of its storage marked as other and has been this way since the update. Maybe for some it has dropped considerably but in general it appears to have not gone away.